Oscar Strategists Are Past the Point of Exhaustion
Endless awards season stumbles to a close
junior publicist shares. “I would call a voter, and they didn’t want to talk about the movies. They were telling us what we wanted to hear so the call could end.”
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has gone increasingly global. Because of travel restrictions, it was harder to gather voters together, and outreach was tougher to pull off. Some foreign members answered emails or phone calls, but many ignored all forms of communication, making it difficult to gauge not only what they thought of a particular movie but if they’d even gotten around to watching it.
In the middle of the pandemic, the Academy announced changes to its eligibility requirements for best picture, allowing films to debut on a streaming platform or in the online Academy Streaming Room for members. Along with that concession to the obstacles to movie distribution in the
COVID era, the organization also extended eligibility from Dec. , to Feb. , . Picture nominees “The Father” and “Judas and the Black Messiah,” both of which hit theaters in February, benefited from the extended timeline, as did best actress contender Andra Day, whose “The United States vs. Billie Holiday” debuted on Hulu that month. That meant these films were getting reviewed and discussed as Oscar voters were putting the finishing touches on their ballots, helping them surge into contention at an opportune time.
But the -month Oscar season was an albatross for many critically heralded films, such as Spike Lee’s “Da Bloods” and Kelly Reichardt’s “First Cow,” which were released in the spring or summer and left the public consciousness in the ensuing months. Neither film managed to snare a major nomination. Of this year’s
It wasn’t just Zoom fatigue, which was definitely a factor. I would call a voter, and they didn’t wanttotalkaboutthemovies.”--publicist
best picture nominees, “The Trial of the Chicago ” was the earliest release, having premiered in theaters on Sept. before streaming on Netflix on Oct. .
Marketing executives reinvented the campaign wheel, thinking of dozens of ways to reach voters and consumers alike while lacking the kind of concrete data they had come to rely on to see if their strategies were effective. “You don’t know what you don’t know,” one major studio executive says. “I’ll be honest: Our slate had a decent showing, but I still can’t tell you which or if any of our plans worked.”
So where does Oscar campaigning go from here?
The Academy has yet to announce when the ceremony will take place or what the eligibility cutoff will be. That’s put studios and strategists in a holding pattern as they try to game out the coming year of plaudit hopefuls.
“The Board and the Academy have been and will continue to do an in-depth review and analysis of the addendums and all the temporary changes that were adopted in ,” says a source within the Academy. “We have to see what is still applicable now in versus where we were last year.”
At the moment, most studios and awards whisperers are looking forward to much-needed breaks from screening rooms and interviews, magazine profiles and television sit-downs. It has been an awards season like no other, a marathon run against stiff headwinds and on punishing terrain. Finally, however, the finish line is in sight.